RXA

63/365 – Watching the weekend away

Originally uploaded by RXAphotos

Sunday morning came a little too early but it continued a great weekend.

It didn’t take long for the camera to come out (I don’t know how it happened) and even though I have been pointing the camera at myself for 62 days in a row, L took one of the best photos of me have ever seen. What cheeses me off is that I can’t use it as a self portrait.

After throwing down some breakfast I bid farewell and drove to Mike’s house for the monthly family photo walk. Every month on the second Sunday Chris, David, Mike and I hop in a car and venture forth the capture the world as we see it.

Today it was Mike’s turn for the location choice and he chose well. Into the urban jungles of Fitzroy and Collingwood we went. By no means my photographic forte I had a difficult time creating images, but I managed a few good ones. The day was enhanced by Mike having prepared some “challenges” to shoot for. I drew out of the bag “three in a row”, “green”, “different” and “leading lines”.

After the walk finished I was back in the car and back to the waiting smile (feel free to groan) of L to help her prepare for a barbecue. One of her menagerie of sisters and family were coming round to “check out the new guy” or “have some dinner” as they put it.

A great meal was consumed and several photos taken of the throng. Apparently I got the two thumbs up from the sister so I was allowed to stay a little longer. We took Jake for another walk and watched him try in vain to ‘further his relations’ with a dog four times his size. But the little bugger has persistence.

Lying in a hammock, watching the stars and the moon in the sky (better get that bucket ready) when this photo was suggested to me for my self portrait of the day. What can I say? The girl has an eye for it.

Finally got up and did the dishes before heading home and posting the photo to flickr.

A great weekend. And due to scheduling conflicts, probably the last time we see each other until next Saturday dammit.

Look out behind you!

Originally uploaded by RXAphotos

As is often the case, David and I went to the Zoo. He goes more often than I as he is a member of FOTZ (plus I think he has a bizarre MeerKat fetish) , but I go whenever I can.

After arriving we immediately hit the snack van to bolster our sugar reserves and load up with beverages before we trundled around the Zoo.

For the first time in I don’t know how long, I was not leading the shot count. Right from the get-go I was being more selective in what I shot. I have no idea why this was the case, but it was. David reached one hundred shots before I reached twenty. As a comparison, recently at Healesville I shot 7 Gb (800 photos).

This theme carried on for most of the day and I limited myself to using a single 1 Gb card (I shoot RAW – and no, that does not mean I was naked) for the entire day including self portrait.

Although not our best day at the zoo we both returned with images we are proud of. Nothing ‘gob-smackingly’ brilliant, but some worthy pictures to put my name to.

The featured image made it into Flickr’s ‘Explore‘ (top 500 photos for the day) section yesterday. It was one of my favourites, showing a bond and trust between keeper and giraffe.

In the evening I ventured to Camberwell to finish setting up a blog for a reader of mine. She mentioned on Sunday via online chat that she was thinking of starting one and by the time we had finished chatting I had the nucleus of a blog set up (including domain name registration).

If you get a chance, check out her blog here and give her an audience to write for. A great start has been made thus far and I can’t wait for her to let rip with a few rants as I know teachers can (having lived with one for eleven years). Those in the know can subscribe via RSS for automatic updates.

Welcome to the blogosphere Trina and thanks for the home made pizza.

Saturday morning was spent in the continual struggle of man and Matthew. Don’t get me wrong he is a fantastic kid, funny, gorgeous, cheeky but MY GOD he has a rebellious streak … no idea where he got that from!

After returning him to his mother I drove to Frankston to use some of Chris and Mel’s storage space freeing my car from some of its load. Whilst I was there I took and uploaded the self portrait for the day and we watched some TV to pass the time.

The first item on the agenda was the South Park episode I had heard so much about from friends. It’s the episode where Cartman forms a Christian rock band to try and make a platinum record before Kyle can. The funny/disturbing bits are Cartman’s black friend “Token” who is repeatedly told that because he is black he can not only play bass, but he will already have one in his basement. Very wrong but very funny.

Cartman’s key to success is changing lyrics to songs already written from love, babe and darling to Jesus. And once again, very funny but oh so wrong at times.

The next item was the second episode of House (fourth season). Still love this show and I can’t wait to see where it goes from here.

The last show was my introduction to “The Unit”. This was a fantastic show and I have got the entire first season to watch now. It deals with the parallels of soldiers in a “unknown” special forces unit dealing with terrorists and and their wives at home dealing with living in “the army system”.

I had a gig with the Cucumbers that night so it was off to get ready for that. A rather long night but as usual hilarity was bought to the fore during the evening and I once again demonstrated that there is no better teacher than experience as I continued to play although crying (yes I do mean tears were streaming down my face) with laughter at one point. Closest I have ever come to stopping during a song.

Got home about 1.30 and crashed.

47/365 – Live in concert

Originally uploaded by RXAphotos

Friday after returning Matthew to the care of his mother I ventured down to Yarra Junction to the Brit Park Campsite, a facility owned and operated by the Guides of Victoria.

The Cucumbers (the covers band I play with) were the featured item at the close of camp party. Although we hadn’t played since June we still bought the house down and the girls all had a great night.

I found out during have gigs coming up in Lillydale, Wonthaggi and the MCG MCC members long room.

Join the Cucumbers and see the world!

This photo is one of my self portrait series (47 days straight now) and was taken by placing the camera under the drum looking up and triggering the self timer with a remote.

Airborne

Originally uploaded by RXAphotos

I had the pleasure of taking my son to the Melbourne Show on Friday. We got there right on opening time and walked around trying various rides and grabbing a couple of show bags for him and one for his mother.

Despite raining here and there we both had a great day and Matthew was really well behaved. He was fascinated by wood chopping competition and was asking his usual million questions and telling me how it all worked after five minutes.

The fact it cost me over $100 for the day for the two of us (I didn’t get any show bags this year) didn’t spoil my enthusiasm. You come to expect this. It was still a fun day.

The featured photo was one of very few I took during the day. This is very unusual for me but I wanted to spend the time with Matthew and not staring through the viewfinder.